First class saw a kids arm explode. Traning seems very intense/complicated even for a Bjj purple belt. Is this normal?
So I'm a BJJ purple belt and wanted to check out some judo schools in Seattle. What I found is that judo kids were far more technically clean and intense compared to Bjj kids. Like their actual execution of throws look way more like adult judokas than Bjj kids look like adult Bjj if that makes sense.
Then I saw a kids (about 13) arm explode from a throw and yeah it happens. But what sort of was surprising was how non chalant the staff were about it like "yeah it hurts and it happens" set up pylons around the kid and asked everyone to go back to newaza as if nothing happened, while they tended to the kid while he was screaming in pain about his arm.
So that was a bit traumatizing to a start of a trial class, but between two different schools I've found that the warmups, and randori particularly brutal and really hard to recommend for a new person.
We even started with some newaza and doing some complex sweeps with a lapel kimura from front headlock position that even I had trouble following with.
I find randori to be some insane pace because everyone is on a short clock and playing like they are going to get shido. So like every randori is like some intense session, and when it goes to newaza it's a 100% scramble to not get mate'd.
Even all this then, during open randori and when I'm allowed to do newaza I'm able to keep up pretty well doing normal back takes and bow and arrows on people which shouldn't be surprising because I spend 80% of my 1000 hours here where it's the opposite for judokas.
I'm enjoying it? But it seems really unapproachable if a Bjj purple belt is having a hard time following along, I almost would recommend people do BJJ for a year before going to judo to ease them into it if this is the experience.